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38 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 7, 2011
OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS
FISH TALES
How a neighborhood bar became an art-world scene.
BY KELEFA SANNEH
U lli Rimkus has a complicated rela-
tionship to alcohol. She is the owner
and proprietor of a bar called Max Fish,
on Ludlow Street, on the Lower East
Side, which means that she works full
time in the alcohol industry. But in hiring
bartenders Rimkus tends to follow a sim-
ple rule: no bartenders need apply; she
prefers glassblowers and silk-screeners,
rappers and skateboarders. She grew up
in Germany, and she has always been
discomfited by the pushiness of some
American establishments, where any
empty glass is viewed as a sales opportu-
nity. On weekend nights, it can be dif-
ficult to get served, especially since, in the
past twenty-one years, there has rarely
been a shortage of people needing ser-
vice. The metal grate doesn't roll up until
5:30 P.M
, because Rimkus never liked
the idea of enabling daytime drunks, but
it doesn't roll back down until 4 A
M
,
which marks the start of New York
State's daily moratorium on the sale of al-
cohol for on-site consumption. There are
people who say that Rimkus doesn't
drink, but they are wrong: she does, al-
though not very often, or very much.
Veterans of the bar remember that, dur-
ing the frenzied early years, Rimkus
would celebrate the end of another busy
night by pouring herself a small glass of
brandy from a bottle whose presence, if
it had been detected, might have sur-
prised many of the patrons; their tastes
ran, and still run, toward cheap whiskey
and cheaper beer. (There is no basement,
and therefore nowhere to keep kegs, and
therefore nothing on tap.) For Rimkus,
alcohol is, if not quite a necessary evil,
then a necessary concession: she wanted
to create a place where her artist friends
could hang out after work, and the only
sensible way to do this was to sell them
drinks.
When Max Fish opened, in 1989, it
was an anomaly: a cheerful Techni-
color sanctuary that seemed like a rebuke
to the half-abandoned neighborhood
surrounding it, and to the sepulchral aes-
thetic then ( and now) prevalent in down-
town bars. Rimkus wanted her place to
be bright and friendly-"So that women
would feel more comfortable;' she says-
and first-time visitors often blink and
scowl at the handmade chandeliers,
searching in vain for a shadowy corner.
The bar was a success even before it was
a bar. During the months Rimkus had to
wait for a liquor license, she turned the
space into an informal art gallery, and,
after the bar opened, the gallery re-
mained, with paintings and photographs
hung high, to deter impetuous would-be
collectors.
Over the years, Max Fìsh became sur-
prisingly influential, home to a loose
confederation of artists and layabouts
and doers and be-ers, and the inspiration
for similar establishments around the
country. For a certain kind of culturally
curious young local or transplant, Max
Fish was a comfortable place to blow off
steam for a few nights or a few years; you
could call it the ultimate hipster bar, if
only that didn't sound like an insult. As
a consequence, it was also a catalyst for
what one patron calls "the rehipifying of
the Lower East Side," which means that,
on Ludlow Street today, Max Fish is,
once more, an anomaly: a respectable
old-timer in a neighborhood full of bois-
terous newcomers. The neighborhood
has become what urban sociologists call
a nightscape, full of restaurants and
lounges and ostentatious establishments
trying hard to be both. So it was no great
shock when, in December, word came
that the rent had risen past what Rimkus
could pay, and Max Fish might have to
close. Even a celebrated neighborhood
institution can sell only so many three-
dollar Pabsts.
Rimkus is tall and beautiful, in a se-
rious sort of way, with long wavy hair
that she blows straight, and bangs that
she trims perfectly horizontal; the sever-
ity of her haircut contrasts pleasingly